History Main / BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor

* Somewhere in the Soviet Union... A Russian catches a goldfish, who speaks: "Dear man, free me and I'll grant your one greatest wish." The Russian thinks for a moment: "Well, I have a solid, well-paid job, a beautiful wife, two great children, a car, a flat... What could I wish for? I know! I want to receive the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_of_the_Soviet_Union Hero Of The Soviet Union]]!" The fish nodded: "Your wish is granted!" Suddenly the guy is caught in a giant blast. As it recedes, the man finds himself sitting in a foxhole, wearing a worn-out battledress, with a rifle with a few bullets and several grenades and the bodies of other Russian soldiers lying all around. The man looks out and notices a large group of Nazi tanks advancing towards his foxhole. Suddenly, he realizes: "[[PrecisionFStrike Holy fuck!]] [[OhCrap It's a posthumous one!!!]]"

* Manhwa/TheDruidOfSeoulStation has Suho Park wishing to go somewhere where there are no humans and he ended up transported to another world where there are no other humans.

** Moe from ''VisualNovel/DeathMark'' is a big occult fan and has always wanted to meet a ghost. She found meeting Hanahiko terrifying.

* Not exactly wishing, but an Australian joke often repeated around election time is: "For god's sake, don't vote informal[[note]]Australia has compulsory voting - which actually just means you have to show up at the polling place and get your name crossed off. There is nothing to stop you from turning in a blank or otherwise invalid ballot if you don't like any of the candidates, or simply don't care. The technical term for this is an informal vote.[[/note]]! I wrote "Useless Bastards!" on the ballot paper back in [Year several decades ago], and they've been in government ever since!"

* Not exactly wishing, but an Australian joke often repeated around election time is: "For god's sake, don't vote informal[[note]]Australia has compulsory voting - which actually just means you have to show up at the polling place and get your name crossed off. There is nothing to stop you from turning in a blank or otherwise invalid ballot if you don't like any of the candidates, or simply don't care.[[/note]]! I wrote "Useless Bastards!" on the ballot paper back in [Year several decades ago], and they've been in government ever since!"

* TheDruidOfSeoulStation has Suho Park wishing to go somewhere where there are no humans and he ended up transported to another world where there are no other humans.

* One account of the story of the FlyingDutchman (first published in ''Blackwood's Magazine'' in 1821) goes that the captain was caught in a storm off the coast of South Africa, and swore he would make it around the Cape of Good Hope if it took him until Judgement Day. Sure enough, to this day he's still trying to navigate his GhostShip through the stormy seas.

* ''Animation/{{Mechamato}}'': Pian yells for Rubika's hand to let go of Amato and open the door which was blocking him, but it opens instantly afterwards. The giant hand drops Amato and invites him in, but Pian just slowly backs out of the room in fear.

* "Literature/PrinceIvanTheWitchBabyAndTheLittleSisterOfTheSun": Your son does not talk. Wish for any child at all, because things can't be worse, and you get [[WitchSpecies a witch child]] born with iron teeth who eats you up.

** Even the kings were occasionally punished for their wasteful wishes. When David fell in love with the married Bathsheba, he sent her husband Uriah to his death to have her for himself. God, furious, sent the prophet Nathan to tell David a story about two men, one rich and one poor. The rich man had many sheep, while the poor man had only one--but when the first man wanted to hold a banquet, he stole and slaughtered the second's sheep rather than serve one of his own. David, upset by this story, remarked that he wished the first man would be brutally punished for his selfishness and greed...whereupon Nathan told him that ''David himself'' was the rich man, as he'd taken Bathsheba despite having wealth and concubines of his own. The wish for punishment came true, as Bathsheba and David's child died in retaliation for their sins.

* Referenced in ''ComicStrip/{{Retail}}'': this trope is precisely ''why'' Heather would decline a wish from a genie, as far too often the genie will grant it in a way that causes undesirable consequences. Donnie loves her answer.

** [[https://garfield.com/usacres/1989/01/15 Roy decides to play a prank on Wade]] by dangling a fake spider in front of a napping Wade before waking him up. Wade, scared by the spider, proceeds to scream... only for [[WrittenSoundEffect the scream to travel across the Earth before striking Roy from behind.]]

** One strip has Garfield [[CatUpATree stranded up a tree]]. Garfield says to it "Stupid tree... may all your stupid branches fall off!" Needless to say, all the trees branches broke off and fell to the ground. Including the one he was on.

** [[https://garfield.com/usacres/1988/08/16 Roy encounters Bo while carrying a heavy sack. He then tells Bo to step aside so he get walk by. Bo obliges... except Bo happens to be standing in front of a cliff, and the strip ends with Roy about to walk right off it.]]

* There's a story from somewhere in Africa about a tribe that doesn't exist any more, because when seeking a reward from some supernatural being, the men said that the best thing that could happen to them was for their wife to give them a son, and for their cattle to give them female calves. -- So be it, all your children shall be sons and all your calves shall be heifers. -- They rejoiced, until...

* Played with in one fairy tale about a girl who lies dying during the early spring from [[IllGirl a malady winter has afflicted her with]] who wishes that she could at least get to live for as long as the beautiful spring flowers in her garden still bloom so she can meet with her boyfiend who is set to return to her before summer. She near instantly becomes healthy and, unusually for [[TimeDelayedDeath the way these kind of tales tend to work out]], seems fully aware of the fact that [[LivingOnBorrowedTime her life is now]] [[ExactWords tied to her garden flowers]] and starts taking good care of them to ensure her own survival. She never regrets her wish or angsts about how [[YourDaysAreNumbered her days are numbered]] but is simply thankful for the additional time she has been given and is [[LikeYouWereDying even more loving and kind to her family than usual]]... Cue her unknowing boyfriend returning while she's napping in the garden: he plucks the flowers, braids them into a crown and wakes her up by placing it upon her head. The girl quickly realizes what the boy has done and hurriedly sets the flowers in water but over the following days. As the flowers wither away, so does the girl. The story ends with the last petals of the flowers falling as the girl peacefully passes away with her family and [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone devastated]] boyfriend at her side while the hushed laughs of TheFairFolk are heard from the garden.

** [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Braid%20of%20Fire Braid of Fire]] is based around this. It gives you increasing amounts of mana at the start of your upkeep, and by its mana given/casting cost ratio is one of the best mana accelerants ever made. But unlike most it happened uncontrollably, and it was also made in the days of mana burn; if you couldn't find something to spend all that mana on before your mana pool emptied you'd take increasing amounts of damage, giving you a choice between hoping something turned up before it killed you and giving up so much lovely extra mana.

* The trope image comes from ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'', during a storyline where Calvin gets sick -- Calvin's mom, annoyed at being woken up so late, mutters that "he'd better ''really'' be sick". Calvin immediately [[VomitDiscretionShot barfs loud enough for the sound effect to take up half the panel]].

* One particular instance is Draupadi, the Pandavas' wife, in the ''Literature/{{Mahabharata}}'' yearning for a husband in her previous life. She wanted her husband to be as strong as Vayu, as talented as Indra, as moral as Dharma and as beautiful as the Ashwini twins. She forgot to specify that she wanted '''one husband'''. As a result, in her next incarnation, she married five men and was the wife of five husbands simultaneously.

* "Literature/PrinceIvanTheWitchBabyAndtheLittleSisterOfTheSun": Your son does not talk. Wish for any child at all, because things can't be worse, and you get [[WitchSpecies a witch child]] born with iron teeth who eats you up.

http://www.mythfolklore.net/andrewlang/241.htm

* In the children's tale ''The Stonecutter'', a discontent stonecutter makes contact with the spirit of the mountain from whom he cuts stone. The spirit offers him wishes which the stonecutter uses to change his lot in life. But with each new life he finds himself seeing someone more powerful and coveting that power. It culminates in him wishing he was the mountain, thinking that nothing can topple a mountain. After granting this wish, the spirit leaves since this last wish essentially caused the ex-stonecutter to replace him as the mountain's spirit. The new mountain spirit is satisfied with his wish at first, until he feels another stonecutter chipping away at the mountain...

* Played with in one fairy tale about a girl who lies dying during the early spring from [[IllGirl a malady winter has afflicted her with]] who wishes that she could at least get to live for as long as the beautiful spring flowers in her garden still bloom so she can meet with her boyfiend who is set to return to her before summer. She near instantly becomes healthy and, unusually for [[TimeDelayedDeath the way these kind of tales tend to work out]], seems fully aware of the fact that [[LivingOnBorrowedTime her life is now]] [[ExactWords tied to her garden flowers]] and starts taking good care of them to ensure her own survival. She never regrets her wish or angsts about how [[YourDaysAreNumbered her days are numbered]] but is simply thankful for the additional time she has been given and is [[LikeYouWereDying even more loving and kind to her family than usual]]... Cue her unknowing boyfriend returning while she's napping in the garden: he plucks the flowers, braids them into a crown and wakes her up by placing it upon her head. The girl quickly realizes what the boy has done and hurriedly sets the flowers in water but over the following days. As the flowers wither away, so does the girl. [[TearJerker The story ends]] with the last petals of the flowers falling as the girl peacefully passes away with her family and [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone devastated]] boyfriend at her side while the hushed laughs of TheFairFolk are heard from the garden.

This is an elementary form of {{deconstruction}} — the character wants X, and then they find out that [[RealityEnsues X has unforeseen consequences]] or [[WantingIsBetterThanHaving is less satisfying than expected]]. Nine times of ten this is an outright {{Aesop}}, though strictly speaking it doesn't have to be. A crucial element of playing that angle well is making the "deal breaker" a meaningful, inherent flaw to the original wish rather than something tacked on or that could have easily turned out differently if the character had more common sense. Otherwise, a BrokenAesop is guaranteed.

** The second short has Timmy wish it were summer forever so he wouldn't have to go to back to school. As his fairy godparents later tell him, endless summer has [[RealityEnsues made the Earth's temperature perpetually torrid, melted the polar ice caps and has caused massive droughts resulting in people fighting each other over the last remaining water]].

* [[http://fullreads.com/literature/prince-ivan-the-witch-baby-and-the-little-sister-of-the-sun/ "Prince Ivan, the Witch Baby, and the Little Sister of the Sun."]] Your son does not talk. Wish for any child at all, because things can't be worse, and you get [[WitchSpecies a witch child]] born with iron teeth who eats you up.

* [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor/AnimatedFilms Film — Animated]]
* [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor/LiveActionFilms Film — Live-Action]]

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor/{{Webcomics}}

[[folder:Fairy Tales and Folklore]]

[[folder:Mythology and Religion]]